Anti-Catholic Double Standard

By now, you’ve heard stories like this too many times. Father McFarlin had a reputation for sexual deviancy. He crossed the line in conversations with children with sexually suggestive language.

By 2005, his Bishops had investigated complaints by six different children in his diocese. But they didn’t report him to police or remove him from the priesthood.

Instead, they let him become someone else’s problem. They hid his behavior and let him go minister somewhere else.

In one memo, a bishop said, “This incident does not have to end McFarlin’s career,” and recommended the diocese conduct “a graceful exit.” He landed in another place where no one knew his record.

By 2011, he struck again, this time having sex with a 16-year old girl.

Like I said, it’s an all-too-familiar story.

Except, this was not really “Father” McFarlin, it was “Mr.” McFarlin, and he was not a priest, he was public school teacher.

And the people who covered for him were not bishops and cardinals, they were public school administrators and school district attorneys.

I took all the details for the scenario above, much of it verbatim, from a (rare) USA Today storyabout Kip McFarlin, a public school teacher at Orangefield Independent School District (Texas).

The greater problem

Perhaps the most shocking point in my recent article on the sexual abuse problem was the problem in the public schools. We wrote,

One study from Hofstra University laments that while there are a number of federally funded national studies on child sexual abuse, there are none that document educator sexual abuse. Gleaning what it can from related studies and databases, this report notes that 9.6 percent of students grades 8 to 11 have reported sexual abuse, and 21 percent of these alleged abuses are by educators.

This represents roughly (by my quick math) about 300,000 cases of sexual abuse.

By Dr. Joel McDurmon

https://americanvision.org/16723/the-big-double-standard-on-child-sex-abuse-no-one-is-talking-about/

Other sources confirm this problem is big—“far more common” than you want to believe. Further, just like the Catholic problem, public schools “continue to conceal the actions of dangerous educators in ways that allow them to stay in the classroom.”

Further, one study says that between 1 and 5 percent of teachers sexually harass or abuse students. Given that there are 3.2 million school teachers, those numbers represent between 32,000 and 160,000 predators in the schools.

Despite this startling problem being laid before the U.S. Department of Education in a 2004 study entitled, “Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of the Literature,” it was related to me that there are no updated stats or studies. Despite the overwhelming indications, there have been no national or even statewide studies of student experiences of educator sexual misconduct. Fifteen years have gone by since this study!

So, while they are raking the Roman Catholics over the coals, they are totaling ignoring—averting the eyes, covering the ears, running to avoid—the same issue in the public schools where all indications are the problem is far greater.

The double standard in law and the media

Meanwhile, the media are not only drubbing the Catholic Church for the same sins they ignore in the public schools, but now they have taken to a theme of how evil that Church is for lobbying against efforts to reform statute of limitations laws.

Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church: How Common?

Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church: How common is it really?

Sensationalist headlines in the mass media, repeated ad nauseam all over social media, give fuel to anti-Catholic bigotry and encourage physical attacks, abuse and discrimination against ordinary Catholics as well as Catholic clergy and religious.

Just recently a Catholic priest, Fr. Basil Hutsko, whom it should be stressed has never been accused of any sexual crime, was attacked and beaten unconscious in the sacristy of his church in Indiana, USA. The attacker reportedly said when launching the attack, "this is for all the kids", in reference to the lurid and unrepresentative coverage in the media.

So, actually, how common is child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church according to the official data from independent investigative reports? And how does it compare to child sexual abuse in society as a whole?

We can get a very good idea by comparing the number of victims identified in independent investigations with the length of the period under investigation and the number of Catholics who experienced their childhood years during that period. By doing so we learn the approximate percentage of Catholic children who suffer sexual abuse in an institution like a school, church or orphanage run by the Catholic Church.

The extensive 2004 John Jay College of Criminal Justice investigation, covering the entire USA, found that there were 10,667 reported cases of child sexual abuse in Catholic institutions over a 52-year period. It can reasonably be said that during that 52-year period at least half of the seventy-million-strong Catholic population of the USA went through their childhood years. In other words, the official data records that approximately 0.03% of Catholic children in the USA were victims of sexual abuse in Catholic institutions over a period of fifty-two years.

Staying in the USA, the very recent Pennsylvania Grand Jury investigation reported that 1,000 children were recorded as victims of sexual abuse in Catholic institutions in Pennsylvania over a 70-year period. With seventy years being roughly the average length of a human lifetime it can reasonably be said that three-million, two-hundred thousand children, which is the size of the Catholic population of Pennsylvania, went through their childhood during this seventy-year period. In other words, the official data records that approximately 0.03% of Catholic children in Pennsylvania were victims of sexual abuse in Catholic institutions over a period of seventy years.

In Ireland, the extensive Commission to Enquire into Child Abuse revealed in its Final Report in 2009 that, over a thirty-four year period, 170,000 children passed through Industrial and Reformatory schools run by the Catholic Church. A total of 369 people made complaint to the Commission during its nine-year-long confidential investigation that they had suffered sexual abuse in these institutions. In other words, the official data records that 0.2% of Catholic children in Ireland were victims of sexual abuse in Catholic institutions over a period of thirty-four years.

Finally, in Australia, another extensive investigation, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, found that 4,444 claimants reported sexual abuse in Catholic institutions. This was recorded over a period of 35 years, which is approximately half a lifetime. The Catholic population of Australia is 5,440,000 and it can reasonably be said that roughly half that number of Catholics experienced childhood during the 35-year period under investigation. So, in other words, the official data records that approximately 0.16%.of Catholic children in Australia were victims of sexual abuse in Catholic institutions over a period of thirty-five years.

It's often claimed that many victims of sexual abuse don't report it through fear, or embarrassment, or for other reasons, so the true number of victims will be higher. Unfortunately, whilst this may well be true, we cannot know it if they are not reported and recorded. If a guess is made as to what percentage of victims do not report child sexual abuse the same rule and measurement must also apply to the officially recorded data for child sexual abuse in the rest of society.

Horrifically, the U.K.-based National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) records a study published in 2000 by Cawson et al, called 'Child Maltreatment in the United Kingdom: A Study of the Prevalence of Child Abuse and Neglect'. The extensive study records that an enormous 16% of children under sixteen-years of age suffer sexual abuse.

In the USA, Rind et al found in 1998 in a meta-analytical study compiled from 23 independent studies, that between 22% and 23% of children under eighteen-years of age suffer sexual abuse

So, the next time you come across an anti-Catholic bigot trying to whip-up hatred against Catholics and against Catholicism, using clerical sexual abuse as an excuse, be sure to make use of the facts and figures from the official data to demolish the myths and the lies that are being used in an attempt to overwhelm and undermine Catholicism. Be sure to point out that child sexual abuse is a hundred times worse, or even thousands of times worse, in so-called "normal" society than it is in institutions run by the Catholic Church.

As the famous Catholic convert G.K. Chesterton once said: "When people impute special vices to the Christian Church, they seem entirely to forget that the world (which is the only other thing there is) has these vices much more."

From *The St. George Educational Trust*.

Soapbox in the Park

A religious fanatic mounts a soapbox in the park. He tells those gathered that if they step on sidewalk cracks, they will go to hell. Remarkably, he gains a following.

An anti-vaccination fanatic mounts a soapbox in the park. He tells those gathered that if they or their children submit to the battery of vaccinations recommended by the medical establishment, they will succumb to autism, cancer, and the heartbreak of psoriasis. Remarkably, he gains a following.

A Global Warming fanatic mounts a soapbox in the park. He tells those gathered that if they don't junk their SUVs for public transit, the polar ice caps will melt and they will all drown in the ensuing deluge. Remarkably, he gains a following.

All three fanatics exercised their First Amendment rights. All three fanatics preyed on people's fears. All three fanatics imparted a code of conduct freely embraced by their followers.

Which of three fanatics committed the crime of indoctrination? Which simply exercised his right to free speech?

Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the Rape of Nanking

The Japanese perpetrated the Rape of Nanking only to retaliate against the U.S. for its Pacification of the Philippines.

What's that? Far-fetched, you say?

Well, now you know what I think of defending Hiroshima and Nagasaki by invoking Nanking.